


Five Times Ben Jackson didn't ask Polly out and one Time she asked him

by Annariel



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: F/M, Five Times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 18:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9250502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: After they get back from their travels in the Tardis, Ben and Polly must pick up their lives.  Somehow that seems to mean it's never quite the right moment to become a couple.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JohnAmendAll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/gifts).



As they left Gatwick, Polly grabbed a newspaper and checked the date.

"When did you say your ship was leaving?" she asked Ben.

He peered over her shoulder. "I can make it just! I better had. I don't have another job lined up. It's going to seem a little boring though after running around with the Doctor."

"Oh, I expect it'll have its excitements."

Suddenly they were staring awkwardly at each other, caught in the awareness that Ben needed to go.

"Well, so long Duchess. It was good knowing you."

"No, Ben, look! I think I'll still have my flat. Here's the phone number, give me a call next time you're in port!"

Polly hastily scribbled her phone number on the edge of the newspaper, tore it off and handed it to Ben.

"Thanks Pol! I'll do that."

He didn't.

Polly knew he'd got into port and hadn't called because she did a little digging in the shipping records and knew when to expect the call, but it never came. So she got on with her life. It was two years before he phoned and Polly privately thought he was bloody lucky she still had the same number.

The Inferno had long ceased to be a nightclub having come, reached a peak of fashionability and gone in the space of the summer of 1968. However there was a new nightclub, called FAB, just around the corner and Polly suggested they meet up there.

"So what made you finally decide to ring me?" she asked after Ben had got the drinks in (because God forbid he should allow her to buy a round).

"Well, you know, new decade, new start."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know how it is. Like, in the Tardis it was different but time was a girl like you and a bloke like me..." he broke off and she realised he was looking at the ring on her finger.

Polly took a deep breath and decide to ignore whatever it was Ben had been about to say. "His name's John. We met at a party."

Ben swallowed and then pasted an expression of enthusiasm onto his face. "What does he do?"

"Family firm making glasses. They've been in business since 1910." Polly felt this line was already becoming old, but what was one supposed to do?

"Sounds like a good catch."

Polly rapped the table, suddenly eager to change the subject. "Hey, give me your address so I can keep in touch. I can send you an invite to the wedding."

"I won't be able to come and I wouldn't fit in anyway."

"I'd still like to invite you and, besides, I'm not going to sit around by the phone forever waiting for you to ring. I need a way to contact you too."

"Yeah, but Pol, I don't really have an address. Half the year I'm at sea."

"There must be some way to contact you."

"Well there's my Mum, you could send letters via her."

"Let's do that then!"

Polly forced him to write his mother's address in her address book and then managed to turn the conversation to nostalgia. The evening passed pleasantly enough but it was overcast with a sense of lost opportunities. She sent him a wedding invitation but wasn't surprised when he didn't reply and, surveying the mixture of respectable middle class and bright young things that turned up to the actual wedding, she couldn't help agreeing that he wouldn't have fitted in.

At one point, after an eighteen month silence, Polly wrote to Ben's Mum directly and got a very kind letter updating her on Ben's career. He'd got onto an officer training scheme and had good prospects. Polly rather viciously dusted her already immaculate home on receipt of that letter. However six months later, when John walked out, it was Ben's mother she phoned. She was surprised by the flutter of joy when Ben himself answered the phone. She knew her explanation for the call was a little incoherent but it was clearly coherent enough that he came round to her house and took her out to a meal. It was only to a Berni Inn, but at least the place had no pretensions and Ben could relax.

"I feel like such an idiot," she told him rather drunkenly after several beers.

"He's an idiot, giving you up. What got into him?" Ben said loyally.

"He wanted children," Polly sniffed.

"And you don't?"

"Well, yes, I want children but... Oh Ben, I like having a job and John just assumed I'd give it up once children were on the way and I didn't know how to broach it with him."

"I still feel like I'm missing something here Pol."

"Well he started talking about seeing a Doctor because, you know, no children on the way and so then I had to tell him I was still on the pill."

"And then he walked out?"

"Yes."

"Well he still sounds like a first class plonker to me. If you don't mind my saying so."

Polly laughed through the tears. "No, please say so. It's good to hear it."

"He was a first class plonker and you are better off without him."

Ben momentarily looked like he was going to say something else but obviously changed his mind. "Give yourself a break," he said. "Find out what you want to do with your life. I know you want a job but I don't suppose you're planning on being a secretary forever."

"I don't know what else I can do."

"I don't either, but I've seen you face down Daleks and Cybermen so I don't suppose there's much that can stop you once you put your mind to it."

The following week Polly sent several applications off to university Journalism courses because, well, why not. She'd got some savings and was likely to do reasonably well from the divorce settlement. She thought maybe her dissatisfaction from life was that the Doctor had given her the travelling bug and journalism might give her an excuse to see the world. She saw Ben whenever he was around, but he'd come over all intimidated by her potential academic qualifications, so her hints that their friendship might turn into something else fell on sterile ground.

Of course, once she'd graduated, the best she could do was go back to a typing job, only this time at the Guardian rather than at Post Office tower. She called Ben and persuaded him to come out with her to celebrate or commiserate or whatever and in the slight hope that he'd make a move. It was disconcerting when he turned up with Kathy in tow.

"She works at the Vyella factory," he said proudly.

Kathy was pretty if dowdily dressed and clearly thought the world of Ben. For the first time with Ben, Polly felt a bit like an outsider looking in. Ben and Kathy chatted easily and happily about people she didn't know. Kathy it seemed lived in the same street as Ben's Mum and knew all the neighbours. The conversation turned to television and Polly was at least able to join in with some enthusiasm on the subject of _Are you Being Served?_ , _Morecombe and Wise_ and _The Generation Game_.

"She's nice," Polly commented when Kathy excused herself to go to the ladies'.

"Yeah, she is. One in a million. I've known her since she was a kid but it was only when I got back this time that I realised she's all grown up."

"She suits you."

"I dunno Pol. She gets on with Mum like a house on fire and she's got a heart of gold, and..." he tailed away and glanced side-long at Polly. Then he took a long drink of beer.

"Listen to me. I don't know what I'm talking about. Kathy is the best. I'm should probably marry her."

"Yes, you should," Polly said feeling a little cross but not sure what else she could say.

"Will you come to the wedding?"

Polly thought about that. "Best not," she offered.

"Yeah, you're probably right. You won't fit in with my world any better than I'd have fitted into yours."

Polly bit back the observation that it would have been nice if he'd at least tried.

Kathy really did have a heart of gold. Polly got a wedding invitation after all, plus periodic invitations to christenings, parties and the odd Sunday lunch. It would have been odd if she'd refused all of them and so gradually found herself pulled into the Jackson family orbit.

Late one evening, long after Kathy had excused herself and gone to bed, Ben and Polly were lingering over a bottle of rum that Ben had acquired somewhere entirely unlikely. Polly had a vague memory it had come from New York, but she wasn't paying that much attention.

There was a moment, sat together on the sofa when they were just a little bit too close. Polly was already chalking up an "I was drunk," excuse when Ben shifted away slightly and changed the subject.

"What happened to your plans of being a journalist?"

Polly shrugged. "Not as easy as it looks. I should have tried getting a job at a local paper, instead I went right back into being a secretary or personal assistant as we're called these days."

"So you've given up on the idea of travelling?"

"No!" Polly said indignantly. "Well, you've been all over the world so you'll laugh."

"I won't."

"I was planning to go travelling with Janey. I was at university with her and she worked her way up properly. She got a travel writer job at the Guardian. They wanted her to do a kind of tour and we thought I'd go with her."

"As a secretary."

"No, I'd resigned. But I have savings and with two of us we could get hotels a bit cheaper, you know."

"But... I sense there's a but coming up."

"She's got pregnant and now she's not going," Polly huffed in frustration, "and I've jacked in my job and all."

"Bet the paper isn't that pleased either."

"I gather not, but what can they do?"

"They could send you instead."

"What?"

"Well I mean you did that fancy journalism course, the same as Janey. I bet you'd write great travel articles."

"Don't be silly Ben. Having a degree isn't the same as having worked your way up."

"Still, no harm in asking. If you've already bought the tickets they'll be getting it virtually for free. Why would they turn it down?"

Going away meant giving up her flat and in the whirlwind of sorting everything out she forgot to send most people updated contact information. When she got back most of her close friends had taken to sending letters to the Guardian's office and she was handed a big pile by a rather grumpy clerk the first time she checked in. Of course Kathy Jackson would never have dreamed of writing to a paper like the Guardian. Polly sent change of address information, but it was returned with `no longer at this address' and that, it seemed, was that.

Ten years later in a quayside bar in Algiers, as Polly was idly jotting adjectives like 'sun-drenched' and 'cerulean' into her notebook, a hand came down on her shoulder and a familiar voice said, "Afternoon Pol!"

"Ben!" she cried in delight and instinctively went in to kiss his cheeks, forgetting momentarily that that was the kind of thing he considered toffish. To her surprise he reacted gracefully.

"Look at you!" she said admiring his smart clothes.

"Captain Jackson, at your service Ma'am Things have come on a long way since I started. Imagine a bloke like me ending up as a Captain."

"Of course you deserve it. There was always more to you than an Able Seaman. Sit down tell me everything!"

He laughed easily and sat down opposite it her, gesturing for the waiter's attention. "I suppose I shall have to do all the talking, since I know all about you."

"Do you really?" Polly was fascinated.

"I've bought all your books and think I've kept a clipping of every column you've written."

Polly was quietly delighted. "No! Seriously?"

"Seriously. I mean Kathy started it. She was dead impressed to have a real journalist friend. She'd buy the Guardian every day, just in case you had an article. Not that she read much of it because it is mostly a load of old cobblers."

"You're just saying that because the Sports' pages aren't as good as in _The Sun_ "

"Very true. Page three is dead dull as well."

Polly choked on her martini and Ben had to slap her back. Then something Ben had said registered. "Was? You said Kathy was impressed."

"Yeah, cancer, two years ago. I won't pretend it wasn't tough but Ellie was almost fifteen. What with my Mum chipping in they managed to hold the family together. Kathy did good by them kids. I wish I'd been around more."

Polly clutched his hand. "You did good by them too. Don't forget I saw you lots, at least when they were younger. You were a good Dad."

"Never could stay in one place though. That was... is... hard on all of them."

Polly nodded and gazed out across the bar and the sea beyond. "You've got a great family. Makes me jealous."

"What? You? Jealous when you've got this exciting jet-setting life-style?"

"It's not the same Ben."

"You didn't even want kids."

"I did. Just not at the expense of a career and not..." Polly hesitated.

"and not?"

"And not John's kids. I guess I'm old enough to admit that know. That was a bloody stupid mess."

"He was a plonker."

"You never met him."

"Didn't need to."

"Ben, I've always wondered. Why didn't you ever ask me out?"

Ben looked at her sceptically over the beer he'd ordered. "You're a modern woman Pol. Why didn't you ever ask me out?"

"I'm not that modern a woman."

"No, well," he gazed into the distance. "Dunno, it was never the right moment."

Polly eyed Ben critically. He'd aged well but more than that, it felt liked he'd accepted who she was rather than chafing against the differences, both real and imagined between them.

"You've been my best friend for so long," she said. "But I was wondering if... if perhaps you felt it was the right moment to try something a little different."

Ben smiled wryly and clinked his beer glass against her martini. "You know what Duchess? I reckon it might be."


End file.
